The goal of this research is to broaden our understanding of why it may be difficult for older people to find jobs. As such it is concerned with a phenomenon that influences both the material and psychological well-being of the elderly. At the heart of the project lies a recently developed economic theory of long-term contracts. According to this theory employers and employees may find it in their mutual self-interest to form relationships whereby young workers are essentially offered lifetime employment. The hypothesis examined here is that when such contracts are used, employers will tend to not hire "new" older workers. This will even be the case when an older job applicant is as qualified and productive as workers already employed by the firm. The proposed research is aimed at assessing the empirical validity and importance of such ideas. The empirical research proceeds in three steps. First, Census data will be used to identify three digit industry-occupation pairs where older workers can do the work (as indicated by the fact that older workers are employed in the job cluster), yet most of the newly hired workers are young. The second step will use regression analysis to determine whether such industry-occupation pairs tend to have characteristics that are associated with long-term contracts. If they do, then the research will have succeeded in establishing a link between long-term contracts and the propensity to not hire older workers. The final step will examine trends in hiring older workers. This will include an analysis of whether the jobs obtained by newly hired older workers tend to be concentrated in a small and decreasing subset of all industries and occupations. If successful, this work could lead to further research aimed at a more specific understanding of employer behavior toward older workers. This is a one year research project only because the direction and content of future research depends on the results of the initial analysis.